a dreamer, and a thinker, rather than that of a practical man. His
brother Charlie and he, though very much alike in face, were quite
different types of manhood. Charlie, from his earliest school-days,
had never read a book except under compulsion, had never stayed
indoors when he could possibly get out, had never obeyed an unwelcome
order when by force or fraud he could avoid doing so, and had never
written a letter in his life when a telegram would do. He took the
world as it came, having no particular amount of imagination, and
never worried himself. Hugh, on the other hand, was inclined to
meet trouble half-way, and to make troubles where none existed,
which is the worst misfortune that a man can be afflicted with.

Hugh walked to the door and gazed out over the garden and homestead,
down the long stretch of green paddocks where fat cattle were
standing under the trees, too well fed to bother themselves with
looking for grass. He looked beyond all this to the long drab-coloured
stretch of road that led to Kiley's, watching for the mailboy's
arrival. The mail was late, for the melting snow had flooded the
mountain creeks, and Hugh knew it was quite likely that little Patsy
Donohoe, the mail-boy, had been blocked at Donohoe's Hotel for two
days, unable to cross Kiley's River. This had happened often, and
on various occasions when Patsy had crossed, he, pony and all, had
been swept down quite a quarter of a mile in the ice-cold water
before they could reach land. But that was an ordinary matter in
the spring, and it was a point of honour with Patsy and all his
breed not to let the elements beat them in carrying out the mail
contract, which they tendered for every year, and in which no
outsider would have dared to compete.

At last Hugh's vigil was rewarded by the appearance of a small and